This invention relates to magnetometers and more particularly to helium scalar magnetometers with vector capabilities including rotational compensation.
Conventional helium magnetometers use a .sup.4 He lamp (a tube containing .sup.4 He gas which is excited by an rf discharge so that it glows) to provide radiation to polarize either the .sup.4 He metastable atoms or ground state .sup.3 He atoms in the cell. The physics of this process is known in the art. See U.S. Pat. Nos.: 4,567,439 and 3,206,761. See also:
P. A. Franken and F. D. Colegrove, Physics Review Letters 1, 317 (1958);
F. D. Colegrove and P. A. Franken Physics Review 119, 680 (1960); and
F. D. Colegrove, L. D. Schearer and G. K. Walters, Physics Review 132, 2561 (1963).
Conventional helium magnetometers when mounted and used in a rotational device such as a floating container or buoy have an induced error caused by the rotational motion.